7 ms·

Kagi is so nice. Amazing that it's the first search engine I've seen that lets me do something as obvious as customizing ranking for certain websites. And, of c

by Ezhik 1y ago

Kagi is so nice. Amazing that it's the first search engine I've seen that lets me do something as obvious as customizing ranking for certain websites. And, of course, the ability to block websites from search results entirely. It even passes my personal search test - it shows reasonable results and not pages and pages of junkware when I search for "avi to mp4". I think my only annoyance with it is that it shows me shopping websites for irrelevant countries when in "International" search mode - but that's honestly something I'm not sure should be fixed, especially given how it's impossible to get Google to show English results in a non-English-speaking country.

demaga 1y ago
I live in a non-English-speaking country, and Google works fine for searches in English. I would say it only works poorly for single-word searches. Of course, I have my system and browser language set to English, so maybe that's why.
- stevekemp 1y ago
  I have everything possible set to English, yet when searching for street-names or other random things I get shown Finnish about fifty percent of the time. A "change to English" popup sometimes appears with the results, and it sometimes works. Other times it does nothing. Searching in English for things which feel like they should be okay (e.g. a recent search was "Tag (2018)" to lookup details of the film) sometimes results in Finnish too.
mubou 1y ago
> how it's impossible to get Google to show English results in a non-English-speaking country It's ridiculous because there's even a language option in the search settings, but it does nothing. I had to change my country to United States just to get it to stop giving me non-English technical documentation and wiki articles. But that means in order to get local results for stores etc I have to use Bing/DDG instead. Does Kagi solve this problem somehow? Like, can I make it give me non-English results for local things and English results for everything else?
- nicbou 1y ago
  I'm travelling, and it's weird to get results in a different language with every border I cross. Just because I'm in Spain does not mean that I suddenly speak Spanish. My browser and my Google account already transmit my language preferences!
- Ezhik 1y ago
  The best incantation I've got to force English Google results is https://www.google.com/search?q=hedgehog&lr=lang_en&hl=en&udm=14 https://www.google.com/search?q=hedgehog&lr=lang_en&hl=en&ud... For Kagi, I've got it set to give me international results, so technical documentation is in English, but I have to manually change the region to my country for local results - thankfully that's just a dropdown on the same page that remembers your recent country choices.
  - stevekemp 1y ago
    Sadly your incantation fails for me - I've been fighting this issue for years. If I copy and paste your search-link but change the word from "hedgehog" to äiti I get back a page of Finnish results. This drives me mad when I'm searching for a Finnish street-name, or store-brand. My account is setup in English, my browser accept-language headers are English and yet it will constantly decide to switch to Finnish for me. (Except for google maps which will universally show street-names in Swedish. Scream.) Sometimes I get a "switch to English" link, sometimes I do not. Half the time that takes me to a settings page with a progress of "Saving" which does nothing, and half the time it redirects me back to English search results. Google's approach to language has literally no rhyme or reason, and breaks on a daily basis for me. But I guess it is what it is, and I continue to put up with it for the times I use it.
  - jq-r 1y ago
    You can use https://google.com/ncr https://google.com/ncr which doesn't redirect to a country.
- areyourllySorry 1y ago
  try searching for an english word in incognito, there should be a yellow box on the right that lets you change to english. dunno about logged in searches
sundarurfriend 1y ago
> Amazing that it's the first search engine I've seen that lets me do something as obvious as customizing ranking for certain websites. And, of course, the ability to block websites from search results entirely. Brave goggles also allow you to customize the rankings to your preference. You can boost sites to varying levels (1-10 I believe), downrank them, or discard (block) them entirely.
drabbiticus 1y ago
Just curious if you have a screenshot or a list of the top n results for "avi to mp4" when using Kagi so that there is a bit of a data point for comparison captured in thread?
rafram 1y ago
On a search for "avi to mp4": - Google shows CloudConvert, then some helpful Reddit threads, then Ask Ubuntu, then some spammy SEO-optimized converter websites. - Kagi shows CloudConvert, then pages and pages of spammy SEO-optimized converter websites. Google clearly wins there.
- prophesi 1y ago
  Opposite here, but I also don't have a personalized Google search experience, and an exhaustive list of sites in Kagi that I raise/lower/block from the results.
- 28304283409234 1y ago
  Happy paying customer of Kagi here. because to me intention counts. Kagi has the explicit intention to serve me their best results. Google has the explicit intention to get me to click on their customers results. Happy to pay kagi.
  - rafram 1y ago
    Use an ad blocker.
    - infinitifall 1y ago
      Now Google has no intention to serve you
      - rafram 1y ago
        I've never had any issue using any Google service with an ad blocker. They make plenty off of me via YouTube Premium and Google Flights commissions - both services that I think are valuable, and one that I actually gladly pay for.
    - 28304283409234 1y ago
      You do you. I do me.
emacdona 1y ago
> customizing ranking for certain websites [...] the ability to block websites from search results entirely. These were the killer features for me and why I'm happy to continue paying for Kagi. That being said, I've (anecdotally, at least) noticed the quality of their search results declining (still better than Google). I search for a lot of error messages (for example, errors that I encounter while compiling Java code) -- with very unique strings -- only to have the entire first page of results not contain these strings. Even if I quote them. I really want the ability to say "The page MUST HAVE THESE STRINGS". Google used to have "allintext:" -- but even that doesn't guarantee a page will contain a certain string anymore. Now, when I'm trying to get more insight on an error message, I'll use AI first. And while I get much better results that way, I find it incredibly frustrating because search engines USED TO BE JUST FINE for this use case. Now they no longer are.

by Ezhik 1y ago

demaga 1y ago

I live in a non-English-speaking country, and Google works fine for searches in English. I would say it only works poorly for single-word searches. Of course, I have my system and browser language set to English, so maybe that's why.

stevekemp 1y ago
I have everything possible set to English, yet when searching for street-names or other random things I get shown Finnish about fifty percent of the time. A "change to English" popup sometimes appears with the results, and it sometimes works. Other times it does nothing. Searching in English for things which feel like they should be okay (e.g. a recent search was "Tag (2018)" to lookup details of the film) sometimes results in Finnish too.

mubou 1y ago

> how it's impossible to get Google to show English results in a non-English-speaking country It's ridiculous because there's even a language option in the search settings, but it does nothing. I had to change my country to United States just to get it to stop giving me non-English technical documentation and wiki articles. But that means in order to get local results for stores etc I have to use Bing/DDG instead. Does Kagi solve this problem somehow? Like, can I make it give me non-English results for local things and English results for everything else?

nicbou 1y ago
I'm travelling, and it's weird to get results in a different language with every border I cross. Just because I'm in Spain does not mean that I suddenly speak Spanish. My browser and my Google account already transmit my language preferences!
Ezhik 1y ago
The best incantation I've got to force English Google results is https://www.google.com/search?q=hedgehog&lr=lang_en&hl=en&udm=14 https://www.google.com/search?q=hedgehog&lr=lang_en&hl=en&ud... For Kagi, I've got it set to give me international results, so technical documentation is in English, but I have to manually change the region to my country for local results - thankfully that's just a dropdown on the same page that remembers your recent country choices.
- stevekemp 1y ago
  Sadly your incantation fails for me - I've been fighting this issue for years. If I copy and paste your search-link but change the word from "hedgehog" to äiti I get back a page of Finnish results. This drives me mad when I'm searching for a Finnish street-name, or store-brand. My account is setup in English, my browser accept-language headers are English and yet it will constantly decide to switch to Finnish for me. (Except for google maps which will universally show street-names in Swedish. Scream.) Sometimes I get a "switch to English" link, sometimes I do not. Half the time that takes me to a settings page with a progress of "Saving" which does nothing, and half the time it redirects me back to English search results. Google's approach to language has literally no rhyme or reason, and breaks on a daily basis for me. But I guess it is what it is, and I continue to put up with it for the times I use it.
- jq-r 1y ago
  You can use https://google.com/ncr https://google.com/ncr which doesn't redirect to a country.
areyourllySorry 1y ago
try searching for an english word in incognito, there should be a yellow box on the right that lets you change to english. dunno about logged in searches

sundarurfriend 1y ago

> Amazing that it's the first search engine I've seen that lets me do something as obvious as customizing ranking for certain websites. And, of course, the ability to block websites from search results entirely. Brave goggles also allow you to customize the rankings to your preference. You can boost sites to varying levels (1-10 I believe), downrank them, or discard (block) them entirely.

drabbiticus 1y ago

Just curious if you have a screenshot or a list of the top n results for "avi to mp4" when using Kagi so that there is a bit of a data point for comparison captured in thread?

rafram 1y ago

On a search for "avi to mp4": - Google shows CloudConvert, then some helpful Reddit threads, then Ask Ubuntu, then some spammy SEO-optimized converter websites. - Kagi shows CloudConvert, then pages and pages of spammy SEO-optimized converter websites. Google clearly wins there.

prophesi 1y ago
Opposite here, but I also don't have a personalized Google search experience, and an exhaustive list of sites in Kagi that I raise/lower/block from the results.
28304283409234 1y ago
Happy paying customer of Kagi here. because to me intention counts. Kagi has the explicit intention to serve me their best results. Google has the explicit intention to get me to click on their customers results. Happy to pay kagi.
- rafram 1y ago
  Use an ad blocker.
  - infinitifall 1y ago
    Now Google has no intention to serve you
    - rafram 1y ago
      I've never had any issue using any Google service with an ad blocker. They make plenty off of me via YouTube Premium and Google Flights commissions - both services that I think are valuable, and one that I actually gladly pay for.
  - 28304283409234 1y ago
    You do you. I do me.

emacdona 1y ago

> customizing ranking for certain websites [...] the ability to block websites from search results entirely. These were the killer features for me and why I'm happy to continue paying for Kagi. That being said, I've (anecdotally, at least) noticed the quality of their search results declining (still better than Google). I search for a lot of error messages (for example, errors that I encounter while compiling Java code) -- with very unique strings -- only to have the entire first page of results not contain these strings. Even if I quote them. I really want the ability to say "The page MUST HAVE THESE STRINGS". Google used to have "allintext:" -- but even that doesn't guarantee a page will contain a certain string anymore. Now, when I'm trying to get more insight on an error message, I'll use AI first. And while I get much better results that way, I find it incredibly frustrating because search engines USED TO BE JUST FINE for this use case. Now they no longer are.